Every year, the NCAA men's basketball tournament seems like it's the exact same. Some non-sports fan dominates the office pool, some non-conference Cinderella story forces everyone to question the NCAA's selection process, and the whole thing gets washed down with a "One Shining Moment" highlight montage.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

That is, except this year.

You probably won't be able to tell from your bracket, but 2011 has some major changes in store. New broadcasters. New formats. New channels. For the first time in the tournament's 73-year history, every single game will be available live in their entirety across four different national television networks: CBS, TBS, TNT, and something called truTV. So, get excited. Like this:

More From Esquire

1. The games start on Tuesday, not Thursday.

NCAA

DVR alert: first tip-off is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. Dubbed the "First Four," there will be four games two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday played before the traditional first round. And, yes, two of those matchups will probably be snoozers, played between schools you've never heard of vying for two of the four 16 seeds and the chance to lose to Kansas. But the other two games may actually be exciting. For the first time in tournament history, the NCAA will reveal its last four "at-large" teams, meaning we'll finally know who was on the proverbial bubble. They'll play each other for the honor of making it into the Big Dance. But in order to watch these games...

2. You'll need to find TruTV on your cable box.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

Unless you're a fan of shows like Lizard Lick Towing, Ma's Roadhouse, and Operation Repo, you probably aren't very familiar with truTV. (It exists, we swear.) Not only is the network airing the "First Four," it will air nine other games throughout March. Launched as CourtTV in 1991 with saturation coverage of the Mendendez brothers and O.J. Simpson, truTV got some rebranding from Turner Broadcasting in 2008. The good news? Building off that legacy, truTV is available in 93 million homes and is carried by most major cable providers. The bad news? Not all of these cable providers carry the station in HD. Click here for information on truTV's NCAA coverage.

3. Marv Albert and Steve Kerr are calling college games.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

With the CBS and Turner marriage, some things change, but it'll all look more or less the same. Let's start with the studio shows. Yes, shows plural there are two this year. In CBS's New York studio, Greg Gumbel and Ernie Johnson, longtime host of TNT's Inside the NBA, will rotate at the anchor desk, but a second show will be broadcast from Turner's Atlanta studio, manned by Matt Winer, formerly of ESPN and studio host of Major League Baseball on TBS. The three-hosted-monster will be joined by a rotating crew of analysts, including ex-players Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Steve Smith, Greg Anthony, and Reggie Miller, as well as Seth Davis from Sports Illustrated, shiny hair and all. In terms of play-by-play and color commentary, Marv Albert and Steve Kerr are the only new tandem with Kerr getting a plum assignment, joining Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg for both Final Four games and the finals on CBS.

4. Craig Sager is not color-blind.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

At this point, criticizing the sideline reporter's sartorial choices is like knocking Tim Burton's hairstyle, but it's a tradition we look forward to every year. The longtime Turner broadcaster has been wearing absurd suits and jacket combos since the early 1970's. (Example A: this heinous white overcoat he wore while waiting for Hank Aaron at home plate after Aaron's 715th career home run.) Sager and his dynamic wardrobe join the NCAA Tournament broadcast team this year, where he'll be prowling the court. Prepare your jokes now.

5. You can watch the tourney at work or anywhere else on Earth.

CBS

If you thought last year's streaming coverage was nice, well, Turner Sports, CBS, and the NCAA are pretty much blowing things out of the water now. First, there's an enhanced March Madness on Demand (MMOD) site that will be available online, on the iPhone, and for the first time ever, as an iPad app. MMOD provides live streaming video of every game of the new 68-team tournament, and is available free from the App Store. In addition to streaming the games, you'll also be able to type in your zip code and cable provider to find out what channels games are playing on, talk shit to rival fans, and hit a button that turns your app into faux spreadsheet so your boss doesn't fire you. God bless.